Eleven-year-old Jamie Parker was at home with his grandparents, his sister Jemma, and his beloved dog Tucker when a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Helene floodwaters crashed into their house outside Asheville.
He told WCNC’s Michelle Boudin, who was the first to report the story, that he was on the couch with Jemma when he “face-planted into a wall, full body went flying.”
Their grandmother Donna Johns recounted how the walls came towards her as the house began to slide. She ended up on the roof of the house while Jamie was buried under the stairs in a 12-foot pile of rubble and debris.
“It was scary, I thought I was all alone,” he told the local news outlet. “I thought they went down. I thought my family had died.”
When her screams for her family went unanswered, Donna said she thought the same thing. She had no idea that Jamie was also screaming for help at the top of his lungs.
His grandparents were able to quickly locate Jemma, but were becoming increasingly desperate as they searched for Jamie through the pouring rain.
“It felt like forever down there,” Jamie recalled to WCNC. “I couldn’t see sunlight, I could feel water dripping on me and I thought I was either gonna drown or run out of air.”
Fortunately Tucker knew exactly where his best friend was, and he was determined to save him. “Tucker was above me and he was barking,” Jamie said. “I heard him whining and barking.”
His grandfather Michael said that Tucker refused to move from his spot atop the rubble. “He stayed on top of the pile and was barking away and I just thought he was going crazy,” Michael said. “I didn’t realize he had located the boy!”
Tucker didn’t move until firefighters arrived later and used a chainsaw to dig Jamie out.
“Since he has big ears and a big nose, I think he could hear me and smell me,” Jamie later surmised. “He was trying to tell them where I was.”
Tucker, the shelter dog Jemma and Jamie used their allowance to rescue just days before he was scheduled to be put down, saved the boy who saved him.
Though he escaped from the mudslide with his life, WCNC reports that the trauma of the event “caused a condition that can be deadly.” Jamie was flown to Atrium Health Cabarrus in Concord for treatment.
He is currently at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Jeff Gordon Children’s Center. A nurse there is fostering Tucker, and even though Jamie has been medically discharged, he and his family remain at the hospital. They lost everything in Hurricane Helene, and with their house destroyed, they have nowhere to go. The hospital was kind enough to let them all stay.
Members of the nursing team at Atrium Health have been spending their own money to buy them basic necessities and the Transylvania County Sheriff’s office has started a fundraiser to help them get back on their feet. According to the fundraiser, the Johns family was just $4,000 away from paying off the home Transylvania Habitat for Humanity built for them when the storm hit.
“Please consider giving today to help them get back on their feet and regain the stability they worked so hard to achieve,” the sheriff’s office said.